Editorial Inspirations

Driving through the city, I often hear fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances. As a little girl, these noises, as well as the sight of the emergency vehicles, did not faze me. When I began to drive, my thoughts on their presence changed.

As a seventeen-year-old driver, I imagined how I would feel if these emergency vehicles were coming to my aid. I would need their drivers’ assistance. It might be my life that would be determined, depending on how soon the vehicles met me.

When I heard the sirens, I searched to find the rescue vehicle. If I or other cars were in the path, I moved aside and honked incessantly at others who did not until they finally moved from the path to freedom—life.

This act of creating the path did not prove enough. Upon seeing these vehicles, I began to pray for the people in trouble. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know them and probably never would. I could only imagine what trouble they were in and what I could do to help.

A few times, I even cried.

Those people, in such need, and random drivers who care only about being late to work. I care. I want to help.

As a child, I grew up around guns. They were always within my reach. When I was five, my father took me to his bedroom and showed me the gun in his nightstand. He told me that it was there for emergencies, but that I was not to touch it. I never did.

I would target practice with my father (when he made me), but guns never interested me. Only once did I hold a gun for protection.

Home alone as a teenager, I heard a stranger knocked on the door. When no one answered, the man began peering in windows. Frightened, I called my parents. My father told me to get the gun and stay in my room. I lay the gun on my bed, as the man continued to peer in many of the windows.

The man eventually left, and the gun remained on my bed until my father came to retrieve it. I have been to various gun shows and gun ranges with my father since then, but I have never held a gun.

Though I held the gun for protection, after discovering that the strange man was a friend of my father I feared what I could have done with that gun had a door to the house been unlocked.

I spoke with her as often as I saw her, but because we were both young and couldn’t drive, it was only a few times a year. Yet, we confided in one another, told each other secrets, talked about boys and kissing. Though we were five years apart, we were good friends.

I grew up and went away to college. When I came back, she was unmarried and pregnant. I no longer knew who she was. Our childhood talks had never been about having sex or babies before marriage.

I trust my husband, I think. I know he is not perfect, but why does he do things he knows make me uncomfortable?

He gambles. He does the internet gambling, and he tells me that it’s okay because he is not using real money. It may not be real money, but he still becomes an addict. His playing on the computer ceases to be when I am not home, and he continues to play instead of spending time with me.

“I’m not addicted,” he says. “I’m just trying to make us some extra cash.”

We have large dreams that take more money than we have. Thus, we each have more than one job. But I would still rather be with him, than sit alone on the couch while he gambles.

He continues to console me by saying that he is not using our money, but is making money for us. Don’t I want that?

I am saddened that he longer has an interest in me, but am grateful that he is not wasting away our money.

A credit card statement shocks me with a charge from a gambling website. Has my husband’s addiction moved to a new level?

“Have you ever thought of me as more than a friend?”

“No.” They are all the same. He and the other coworkers are friends. Though several have asked me out, none lives up to my standards for a boyfriend—a husband.

But we hang out—alone. We talk, and I test him with questionnaires. There are no correct answers, only preferred ones. We have a lot of common interests, but he has one major flaw—he has a girlfriend.

He says that he and his girlfriend are having problems. I give advice to each of them and try to help them resolve their problems. I tell his girlfriend that I am not trying to steal him.

He breaks up with her, and she blames me. She stalks me on the internet and stalks us when we sit in parking lots talking. I don’t understand why he broke up with her after three years. He says it is because he likes me.

She moves out of his apartment, and a few months later, I move in. I have never lived with a guy before, nor do I believe it is good. But I am in college, and I do not like my roommates. My awkwardness of living with the ex-girlfriend’s ghost encourages him to get a new bed—one that has not comforted a previous girlfriend.

I am shy and conservative, and he reassures me by moving the relationship at my pace. I test his faithfulness by living with him, but never having sex. He responds by not pressuring me, by letting me enjoy and explore my naiveté.

“I love you,” he says. But I am too scared to respond. I have strong feelings for him, ones that I have never felt before, but I do not know if it is love.